Hello, subterranean, and anyone else reading this. I finished Silas Marner by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) yesterday, and you, subT, asked for a summary.
The first few chapters tell a very sad story of the title character, who gets robbed, deceived, and swindled in nearly every way imaginable. He moves from his home town, in which he lived all his life, where he gets robbed once more by, whom you could call, the village idiot. Later on, despite his depression, he finds something that carries more worth than the money stolen (I will not tell what; you will have to read). While taking care of what he found for over a decade, someone attempts to claim what Silas Marner found so many years ago, but he refuses. There involves much more detail than I can explain, but I do not want to spoil the story for anyone who has not read the novel.
In retrospect, the novel seems a tale of hope, compassion, and optimism's possible growth in pessimism. I can tell you, with that word, that it ends happily.
Has anyone else read Silas Marner? What did you think of it?